Author: admin (Page 42 of 51)

So I reach update 2 and find myself with only 4000 words to go of the massive 50,000 word total. The writing since my last update has been relatively uneventful. My original plot has been so forgotten I don’t really know what’s happening next in my book but that’s not really that unusual. Once I’ve finished this next 4k I’ll sit down and re-evaluate where it’s all going.

Despite the high chance of me hitting 50,000 way before the end of the month I don’t really expect to get much more done. It seems my last few days of November are so full of wedding related things like Hen nights and bridesmaids dress fittings and then the few Christmassy things on to that other than the rest of this week I’m not going to get much opportunity to add to the total.

But back to my beloved characters. Anya turned out to be a little more gutsy than I imagined her. Seems the first few chapters helped her grow some inner strength and Sherdan softened a little but only a very little. I’ve got countless semi named characters whose names are bound to change a few times in editing and a country I’ve still not properly named. I don’t really like naming under pressure.

For my first attempt at NaNoWriMo I’m pretty happy with how things have gone. It’s been harder lately than it was at the start of the month though. I really think I need to get some kind of tablet with handwriting recognition software. The typing up is a complete pain.

I love films with music in them, well kinda, I love disney films mostly, I don’t actually like most traditional style musicals. They are often a little cheesy for me. I do love music though and a well told story. Therefore I was pretty convinced I would like The Phantom Of The Opera.

I have never had the good fortune to see it in the theatre so I saw the movie version made in 2004. I had no idea of the cast before I saw it so I was extremely surprised when Gerard Butlers name appeared. I spent the next half an hour trying to figure out who he was, I didn’t twig for ages that he was the gorgeous Phantom, singing all those gorgeous notes and perfectly suggestive lines. Gerard Butler was the phantom! This was the same guy I’d seen in Tomb Raider as Terry Sheridan. I spent the next half an hour totally absorbed in how different a performance he was giving.

Naturally I had to watch the film again. I can’t exactly give a fair review of a film when I’ve spent over half of it focused entirely on Gerard Butler. With the second watching I focused more on the film as a whole. There was a lot of detail to take in, in both the music and the scenes. Often the scenes within the opera house were busy and full of background stage people beautifully choreographed. Every little detail seemed well thought of, which was a relief when you notice that on the front cover of the dvd case the phantom’s mask is on the wrong side, (how did they miss that one?) which is not a great first impression.

Christine and The Phantom had an amazing amount of chemistry, the passion between them was evident and along with the music, very compelling. Both actors deserve credit for what they pulled off, the music and acting were both superb. Raoul was my sticking point. I couldn’t decide if I just didn’t like the actor and his slightly creepy smile and laugh or if it was just because he was not meant to be my prefered choice. I didn’t really like him though. I actually found myself wanting the Phantom to win Christine even though he was going about it in the wrong way.

Now don’t get me wrong, Raoul was the knight in shining armour he was meant to be. He pursued The Phantom at every opportunity and did his best to protect Christine when he realised she was in danger. The trouble was, until about two thirds of the way through the film, he didn’t even believe Christine that the Phantom was any more than a myth or something in her head. He even laughs at her at several points for trying to persuade him that the Phantom existed. It was almost like he didn’t actually care about Christine he just cared that someone else was after something he wanted.  He even asks her to put herself in danger so he can catch and punish the Phantom when to keep her safe all he has to do is marry her and take her home. He asks his future wife to risk her life so he can get revenge! I just couldn’t believe he actually loved her.

With that aside the film was amazing, the music was awesome, the singing divine and the details lovingly perfected. It really was an amazing work of art and I’m really hoping to go see the stage version some time soon.

Our intrepid Interviewee is Kat Brooks today.

Tell us about your latest project.

My two newest books were released in the same week back in August.  I definitely didn’t plan it that way!  One is “Mr. Pish’s Woodland Adventure,” which follows the adventurous Jack Russell Terrier – Mr. Pish – on an expedition through the forest.  It’s all full-color photography and information presented in a fun way to get kids (and adults) interested in exploring what’s outside their doors.  It’s the third book in my series promoting Outdoor Learning and Literacy.  My other book is “Night Undone,” a character-driven suspense drama featuring the recurring anti-terrorist Special Agent Kathrin Night.  It’s the second book in the “Cover Me” series which features Agent Night after her career-ending injury.  She now has to deal with forced retirement, a real relationship, and figuring out how to get back into the industry she was born to be in – covert ops.

Writing books for children and writing about anti-terrorist Special Agents are obviously two very different genre’s of book, do you enjoy writing such differing subject matters or find it difficult to balance the two?

I started out writing action-adventure thrillers.  The research and writing mindset is intense.  I welcome the lightness of the children’s books, and the opportunity to showcase my photography.  It’s a gentle, happy creative process, which is a great break from the dark world of an incredibly serious single-sighted Special Agent.

Do you have any quirks to how you write?

I write in marathons.  I get in a mindset and I go.  Nothing else gets done when I’m doing that.

Your writing seems like it can be quite sporadic, do you find it difficult writing to deadlines or just don’t set yourself any?

I give myself ridiculous deadlines.  I’m trying to turn out at least 2 published books a year.  The only reason I stop writing is to do the marketing after a book is released.  I’m almost done with 1 other children’s book, and I was hoping to finish my action-adventure thriller as well – which would have given me 4 this year.  Frankly I’m disappointed with myself because I probably won’t get all 4 in print this year.

Are there any of your characters you particularly relate to, if there is, who and why?

Oddly enough, no, I don’t really relate to any of my published characters. They’ve morphed into something more than me.  I share some of their same basic beliefs, but the similarities end there.  I’ve been working on a vampire novel on and off for about 14 years now (ugh, I didn’t realize it was that long until right now) – and honestly – I relate to that main character more than any of my others.  Which is kind of a frightening thought.

What’s your perfect writing day like?

A perfect writing day would go like this:  Wake up – instantly, the writing in my head begins.  It’s actually more like it never stopped – I was just asleep while it was going on without my knowledge.  Have coffee – write on the laptop.  Don’t stop writing until I walk the dog (Mr. Pish), during which time I’m writing in my head.  Back to the laptop…write until I need to stretch, only stopping momentarily here and there to take Mr. Pish out and get a glass of water or tea.  Make and eat breakfast, lunch and dinner while writing in my head.  Write on the laptop until I’m exhausted, go to bed, write in my head while I’m falling asleep.  Wake up in the middle of the night writing in my head.  This would all be COMPLETELY perfect if there was a staff available to do the cooking and cleaning.  I’d still want to walk Mr. Pish.

What are you planning on doing next/What else are you up to?

I’m working on the sequels to “Postcards from Mr. Pish,” “Mr. Pish’s Woodland Adventure,” “Lust for Danger,” and “Night Undone.”  I’ve got an anthology that I wrote with Author Newton Love that we’re marketing to publishers, and I’ve got that vampire novel started, along with a couple of other projects on the backburner.  There are always at least 4 books being written in my head at any one time.  Good thing I’m ADHD.

You say you’ve written with another author, did you work on the same story/stories together or just put together a collection of stories you’d written separately?

It’s a collection of stories, poetry and flash fiction that we’d written separately.  We’re currently shopping it around to e-book publishers.

Was working with another author a good experience and one you would like to repeat?

Newt is a great guy to work with, and he’s a great author, so it was a wonderful experience.  I’d do it again in a heartbeat…with Newt.  I’ve had some bad experiences with other writers – people blatantly plaigiarizing me – so there’s a big trust hurdle that needs to be overcome before I could work on a project with someone else.   I’m lucky to know Newt, and I’d say to other writers if you have someone talented and trustworthy like Newt who you can bounce ideas off of and collaborate with – hold onto that person and make sure you let them know how much you appreciate them!

If you’d like to find out more about Kat, you can visit her website or follow her on facebook and twitter, likewise for more info on Mr. Pish, you can visit his website or follow him on facebook or twitter.

For more info on the books you can visit the Amazon author page here.

One of the biggest challenges every writer faces is editing. No writer really likes doing it. It’s essentially finding everything that’s wrong with the masterpiece you just laboured over. I’ve blogged before on some of the best ways to edit and you can find that blog here. What I’d like to talk about today is some common things that need to be looked for when editing.

One of my most common mistakes and one I hear other authors talking about is the over use of the word ‘that’. It’s used a lot in speaking but in the written word it’s often not needed. For example the sentence, ‘He told her all of the things that he needed’ works just as well if said, ‘He told her all of the things he needed’ so often doing a find all on the word ‘that’ and removing most of them is a good way to start. Do be aware some uses of the word are necessary, so don’t just do a find and replace.

Another common mistake is the overuse of the character’s names. Often he, she, him and her are enough when there is only two or less characters present. The name can be used again here and there but it doesn’t have to be every paragraph.

Then there is the spelling ones that don’t get picked up by spell checker, for example using the wrong one of their, there, and they’re. As long as you’ve spelt them right then it’s not going to get flagged up as wrong.

The one I always do wrong is it’s and its, they are the opposite way round to my expectations and I can never remember which one I should be using. It’s is the shortened form of it is and its is when there is a posession and the owner is refered to as it. For example if you were refering to a ship’s sails you might say ‘its sails’, not ‘it’s sails’.

The words ‘begin’ and ‘start’ are used a lot in writing as well. They’re not so useful and in almost all cases can be cut out of work. The only time I’d use them is when there is a list of things the person has got to do and they ‘get started on their chores’ for example. It’s the same with ‘then’. It should really only be used in a list of things the person is doing, not as the start to a new sentence or paragraph.

There are a few others but they are the ones I find most often in my own work. I’m getting into the habit of not using them in the first place or using them correctly to begin with but occasionally they still creep into my work where they are not wanted.

So far NaNoWriMo is going very well for me, I’m around the 30k mark for words and not even half way through the month. I’m also getting a good handle on the actual plot length now, even if I’ve not stuck that well to my plot notes. Thankfully all the research I did before has paid off and it’s been light work.

There was one point I got stuck but thankfully adding a little snow and letting my characters frolick for ten minutes seemed to unstick the situation and moved the plot on nicely. Let’s face it who doesn’t like snow angels?

I’m falling even more in love with Anya and improving Sherdan so I’m quite in anger of loving him too. I’ve already laughed at my characters and come very close to tears on several points during writing.

It’s a lot darker than I intended but actually so far I think it’s a good thing. Sometimes the light seems all the brighter for darkness before hand. Either way you’ll be able to decide for yourselves soon. I am hoping to get the first chapter polished up nicely and it will hopefully be one of my first blogs in December.

Anyway time for me to get back to my writing. Good luck everyone else NaNoing this month.

I recently blogged about this book and now I’ve finally finished reading it.

If you have any contact with a creative person at all you ought to read this book. If you are related to a creative, work or live with a creative or are even just friends with a creative this book will make your life a lot easier. If you are a creative you need this book as soon as you can get a hold of it. At this point I’d like to clarify what I mean by a creative. I mean the type of person sho creates artistic works and has a lot of the associated stereotypical things we’ve come to associate with creative people like mood swings, apparent laziness,the insistence to work stupidly long hours once in the flow of their work etc.

Back to the book:

It really was that good. I found myself absorbed in the book from start to finish and it has already impacted not just the way I see myself but also the way I interact with all the different creatives in my life.

The first few chapters just talk about the creative person. How they appear and why they appear that way. The 5th chapter deals with all the negative things that can affect the creative mind and make them appear to be crazy, egotistical maniacs. Chapters 6-9 talk to the people in the world around creatives, starting with partners and parents, then friends, and finally bosses and leaders in the creatives life. The final chapter deals with keeping the creative person anchored and the role spirituality takes in that.

The two writer’s, Jeff and Julie Crabtree, do an amazing job of explaining what is going on in the creative mind in an informative manner without making the creative feel like they are being boxed and defined. They also do a very good job of guiding people who don’t think this specific way through the intricate workings of the creative mind and how to help it when it isn’t working right.

Personally my favourite chapter was actually the chapter on leaders dealing with creative minds. They laid out the best ways to get productivity and happiness out of the creative people in a work situation and not only did I find this really useful in terms of running companies that employ creative people but also from my own experiences working for people that really did not understand the creative persona at all.

For me the book was a must and I really really recommend people read it as soon as they can.

At the moment the book is only available on their website here. It should be coming to Amazon and places like that soon though and I will post again and link to them when it does.

One of my friends recently introduced me and my husband to the game rockband. We had played it a little before now but only the odd few songs here and there and only one version of the game, where you often run out of songs you know in the first hour of playing. It’s fun for a little while but conversation soon moves on to other things. However, this particular friend had all of the games as well as many downloaded extra tracks, I believe somewhere over 400 songs in total.

One hour soon turned into several, we even then came back the next day. To be fair, I’m not entirely suprised, my husband is a drummer and our house is litered with instruments we’ve both played/currently play.

Several weeks later we’d arranged to have an entire friday night of it, we then spent roughly 6 hours playing rockband. At this point we knew we were obsessed. The hard work has paid off, however, the 4 of us that played it the most managed our best performance to date, Linkin park’s In The End, all on expert and with the backing vocals turned off.

On the keys we had my lovely husband, Philip Mountifield, on the guitar we had the amazing Nathan Boxall, and harmonising the vocals was the lyrical artist Alex Feltham and of course myself. It was just such a shame that we had forgotten to sign in and our scores were not recorded.

Jennifer Wilck is my guest author for today.

Tell us about your latest project.

My latest project is Skin Deep, which is published by Whiskey Creek Press and coming out in November. It’s a contemporary romance. Here’s a quick blurb:

The last thing Valerie needs, after escaping an abusive marriage to an alcoholic and rebuilding her life, is a broody, secretive, standoffish man. But that’s exactly what she gets when she becomes a makeup artist on the set of a hit sitcom and draws the attention of the series’ star.

John Samuels hides a terrible past—a life of abuse and neglect. A successful acting career and the affection and support of cast, crew and friends, does nothing to convince him that he is anything other than an unlovable monster.

Will he learn that the life he’s been living has been built on a lie or will he be doomed to repeat the sins of his father?

Do you have any quirks to how you write?

Well, I think it’s perfectly normal, but apparently, my definition differs from the rest of the world’s! Smile I’m very secretive about my writing.

My husband knows that I’m writing, but I don’t let him read anything until it’s published, and even then, I leave the room when he reads anything of mine.

Even my parents didn’t know I was writing a book until I showed them the letter from my publisher offering me a contract. That made for some awkward moments, but luckily for me they were so excited that they didn’t give me a hard time. I guess I don’t want to show anyone anything until I’m sure it’s good. Although I now have a critique partner, Jan, who is awesome and she reviewed and edited Skin Deep for me after I’d finished writing it and before I submitted it to publishers. It was my first attempt at using critique partners and now I show her everything I write.

How do you find the whole publishing process, in a season where things are changing and self-publishing is rapidly becoming more favourable are you still happy to be traditionally published?

I’m finding the publishing process fascinating. Although I write because I love it, rather than with the sole goal of being published, it’s always been in the back of my mind, and to go through the process is a lot of fun and a tremendous learning experience. I am very happy to be traditionally published, because I think it’s really important to have extra eyes view your work, provide editing and formatting help, cover art, etc. It’s very difficult to do that yourself, at least, it would be difficult for me. No matter how many times I look something over, I still miss things because I’m too close to it.

For other people who don’t want to self-publish yet or are unsure what would be the advice you’d give them to help them get published?

Just to be persistent. Don’t give up and be willing to explore many publishing options. You might not want to take advantage of all of them, but the more you know, the better equipped you are to be in this industry. And be nice to everyone you meet on social media, etc. It’s a small world and you don’t want to burn any bridges or get a bad reputation by something you say.

Are there any of your characters you particularly relate to, if there is, who and why?

My characters are fictional, although I try to include a little something of me or from my life in each story. For example, in Skin Deep, the family goes to the Meadowlands Racetrack over the Thanksgiving holiday. That’s their tradition and it was my family’s too. It kind of makes me sound like a degenerate, but it was a lot of fun looking at the horses and trying to guess who would win—I have a lot of fond memories from doing that and I tried to include those in this book. I like strong male and female characters who each have vulnerabilities but who can compliment each other and support each other when needed.

Would you still write if there was no financial need to, and if not what would you do instead?

Absolutely! I write because I love it! Publishing is a bonus, but I write my stories because I have characters talking in my head and I need to write them down. I love the stories I write and I hope others do too, but if I don’t get them published, that’s okay. It’s very fulfilling and satisfying to see a story through from beginning to end.

What are you planning on doing next/What else are you up to?

I’m currently writing another contemporary romance, but this one has a Jewish theme. It takes place during the holiday of Purim and has to do with hiding one’s identity or true self. If I can ever finish editing it, I’m hoping to submit it to publishers in the spring.

It sounds like you do a lot of self editing even if you do get some help, is that something you hope you’ll do less as you publish more or do you think you’ll always spend as much time editing yourself?

No, I’ll always edit my own things in addition to having others look at it. I think you have to. No one person is perfect and books benefit from many different editors.

If you want to find out more about Jennifer then check out her website.

Last month

Here’s the bullet list for last month’s work.

• Typed approx 10k words (including emails and blogs)
• Spent about 15 hours reading
• Spent about 10 hours working for Flight
• Spent about 20 hours working for Red Feather Writing
• Spent about 5 hours promoting book 1
• Approved the final print version of book 1 and ordered the first copies
• Arranged book launch party
• Did all my NaNoWriMo prep
• Second drafted book 2
• Final drafted 2 shorts
• Sent 67 emails

I feel like I’ve had a realy productive month this month, I think I’ve knocked off about 10 things that have been on my to-do list for a while. I’ve not got much left on it at all which has prompted me to finally decide to do NaNoWriMo. At the start of last month I wasn’t 100% sure I was going to get enough done to manage it but I did with a few days to spare.

Most importantly I finally got book 1 completely finished. Other than marketing it there really isn’t anything left for me to do. As I’ve noted in a lot of places I’m now taking pre-orders for the first few copies of the book. I’ll be signing them and selling them at my book launch party but I’ve had a large number of pre-orders already. I may well have to get some more before the actual party in December to make sure I have enough. I honestly wasn’t expecting such a high demand for the print book. I guess print isn’t quite as dead as I thought it was.

The party is going to be at Starbucks on December 17th in Bath, there is a facebook event page here and anyone that wants to come is more than welcome, just click the attending button on the public event page or comment below to let me know you want to come and if you want to pre-order a book.

This Month I’m obviously doing NaNoWriMo so I literally don’t expect to do anything else, other than eat lots of hot soup, chocolate and other easy to prepare but yummy to eat foods.

I’m all set for NaNoWriMo and due to start tomorrow. Book 3 is now named, it’s called Sherdan’s Prophecy. I am signed up on the main NaNoWriMo site and all set to go, you can check out my user page here. I will try and update my progress at least a couple of times during the month to let people know how I’m getting on but people can also check out my user account on the NaNoWriMo site to see as well.

Obviously a lot of my background work has been put up here as well as some small parts I considered having in the book itself. I’m not necessarily going to be including the parts I’ve already written and if I do I’ll need to rewrite anyway to fit them in with the story as it goes so I don’t consider myself to actually have started writing already. Thankfully with the wind-down to November I’ve managed to get all of Novemeber’s blogs scheduled, apart from a few slots for updates, so blogging will continue as normal over November.

Good luck anyone else doing NaNoWriMo, please comment if you are.